Protestant Revolt in Switzerland and Englatid 127 [When Adam fell by partaking of the forbidden fruit his Adam's fall sin kindled the horrible vengeance of God upon all man- and " ori gi- . nal sin." kind.] After the heavenly image of him was defaced he did not alone suffer this punishment, that in place of wis- dom, strength, holiness, truth, and justice — with which orna- ments he had been adorned — there came in the most hor- rible pestilences, blindness, weakness, filthiness, emptiness, and injustice, — but also he entangled and drowned his whole offspring in the same misery. This is the corruption that cometh by inheritance, which the old writers called "ori- ginal sin," meaning by this word the corruption of nature, which before was good and pure. About this matter there has been much contention, because there is nothing further from common reason than that all men should be made guilty for one man's fault, and so sin should become com- mon to all ; which seemeth to have been the cause why the oldest doctors of the Church did but darkly touch upon this point, or at least did not set it out plainly, as would have been expedient. . . . We must be content with this, — that such gifts as it pleased the Lord to have bestowed upon the nature of man he vested in Adam ; and therefore when Adam lost them after he had received them, he lost them not only from himself but also from us all. . . . Therefore from a rotten root rose up rotten branches, which sent their rottenness into the twigs that sprang out of them ; for so were the chil- dren corrupted in their father that they in turn infected their children. . . . And the apostle Paul himself expressly witnesseth that therefore death came upon all men, because all men have sinned and are wrapped in original sin and defiled with the spots thereof. And therefore the very infants themselves, since they bring with them their own damnation from their mothers' womb, are bound not by another's but by their own fault. For although they have not as yet brought forth of Faith. While this is based directly upon the Bible, it is in close harmony with Calvin's teachings, and was the form in which Calvinism was perpetuated in England, Scotland, and America.
